You don’t become the most decorated Olympian of all time without ubiquitous worldwide press coverage — hardware equals headlines — but we can safely say the ink chronicling hometown hero Michael Phelps in the pages of The Baltimore Sun could fill entire swimming pools. A record 22 Olympic medals, including 18 golds, will do that. Search “Michael Phelps” in The Sun’s print archives and you’ll find more than 1,500 articles mentioning him, a total which isn’t comprehensive for the newspaper and doesn’t include any website or mobile content. Ninety-nine front-page (1A) stories* have at least mentioned Phelps, though he’s obviously been the main subject of many of those. Not bad for a 27-year-old, huh?

As Phelps begins life after competitive swimming, we take a look back at The Sun’s coverage of his Olympic medal-winning races in Athens, Beijing and London, highlighting the print covers and stories.

Below is a breakdown of each of Phelps’ 22 Olympic medals, with links to The Sun’s print stories and covers (for the Beijing Games, instead of the daily stories, we’ve used in-depth race recaps that ran in a special section following the Olympics).

It certainly has been an amazing ride for Phelps, and an incredible amount of media coverage, but don’t expect the latter to end anytime soon. We’ll just have to wait and see what’s next for the former “Little Phelps.”

One Comment

In 1992, when you accidently joined swimming, you were far from predicting the changes and contributions you would bring to the sport.

Your retirement from competition in glory days, at London Olympics, clearly demonstrates that you know is your time to leave, but moreover is time for you to live.

Yes, to live!

I believe that being the most accomplished swimming athlete of all times, has required dramatic restrictions on your personal and family lives in the last sixteen years.

Consistently delivering speed, strength, and hyper competitiveness beyond limits, is certainly a kind of slavery mindset and discipline that were easily forgotten under the shinning glow of the medals.

Also here you did a quite outstanding and remarkable trade-off: an inspiration for future generations.

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